THE SABBATH. 23 



from the act. "The precise clergy,'* as Hallam calls 

 them, refused in general to comply, and were suspended 

 or deprived in consequence. *" But," adds Hallam, 

 " mankind loves sport as little as prayer by compulsion; 

 and the immediate effect of the king's declaration was 

 to produce a far more scrupulous abstinence from diver- 

 sions on Sundays than had been practised before." 



The Puritans, when they came into power, followed 

 the evil example of their predecessors. They, the 

 champions of religious freedom, showed that they could, 

 in their turn, deprive their antagonists of their bene- 

 fices, fine them, burn their books by the common hang- 

 man, and compel them to read from the pulpit things of 

 which they disapproved. On this point Bishop Heber 

 makes some excellent remarks. " Much," he says, " as 

 each religious party in its turn had suffered from perse- 

 cution, and loudly and bitterly as each had, in its own 

 particular instance, complained of the severities exer- 

 cised against its members, no party had yet been found 

 to perceive the great wickedness of persecution in the 

 abstract, or the moral unfitness of temporal punishment 

 as an engine of religious controversy." In a very dif- 

 ferent strain writes the Dr. Bownd who has been al- 

 ready referred to as a precursor of Puritanism. He is 

 so sure of his " doxy " that he will unflinchingly make 

 others bow to it. "It behoveth," he says, "all kings, 

 princes, and rulers, that profess the true religion to enact 

 such laws and to see them diligently executed, whereby 

 the honour of God in hallowing these days might be 

 maintained. And, indeed, this is the chiefest end of 

 all government, that men might not profess what relig- 

 ion they list, and serve God after what manner it pleas- 

 eth them best, but that the parts of God's true worship 

 [Bowndean worship] might be set up everywhere, and 

 all men compelled to stoop unto it." 



